The ?eld of robotics continues to ?ourish and develop. In common with general scienti?c investigation, new ideas and implementations emerge quite spontaneously and these are discussed, used, discarded or subsumed at c- ferences, in the reference journals, as well as through the Internet. After a little more maturity has been acquired by the new concepts, then archival publication as a scienti?c or engineering monograph may occur. The goal of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics is to publish new developments and advances in the ?elds of robotics research – rapidly and informally but with a high quality. It is hoped that prospective authors will welcome the opportunity to publish a structured presentation of some of the emerging robotics methodologies and technologies. The edited volume by Antonio Bicchi, Henrik Christensen and Domenico Prattichizzo is the outcome of the second edition of a workshop jointly sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Noticeably, the previous volume was published in the Springer Lecture Notes on Control and Information Sciences. The authors are recognised as leading scholars internationally. A n- ber of challenging control problems on the forefront of today’s research in robotics and automation are covered, with special emphasis on vision, sensory-feedback control, human-centered robotics, manipulation, planning, ?exible and cooperative robots, assembly systems.

Focusing on the important control problems in state-of-the-art robotics and automation, this volume features invited papers from a workshop held at CDC, San Diego, California. As well as looking at current problems, it aims to identify and discuss challenging issues that are yet to be solved but which will be vital to future research directions. The many topics covered include: automatic control, distributed multi-agent control, multirobots, dexterous hands, flexible manipulators, walking robots, free-floating systems, nonholonomic robots, sensor fusion, fuzzy control, virtual reality, visual servoing, and task synchronization. Control Problems in Robotics and Automation will be of interest to all researchers, scientists and graduate students who wish to broaden their knowledge in robotics and automation and prepare themselves to address and resolve the control problems that will be faced in this field as we enter the twenty-first century.

A comprehensive review of the principles and dynamics of robotic systems Dynamics and Control of Robotic Systems offers a systematic and thorough theoretical background for the study of the dynamics and control of robotic systems. The authors—noted experts in the field—highlight the underlying principles of dynamics and control that can be employed in a variety of contemporary applications. The book contains a detailed presentation of the precepts of robotics and provides methodologies that are relevant to realistic robotic systems. The robotic systems represented include wide range examples from classical industrial manipulators, humanoid robots to robotic surgical assistants, space vehicles, and computer controlled milling machines. The book puts the emphasis on the systematic application of the underlying principles and show how the computational and analytical tools such as MATLAB, Mathematica, and Maple enable students to focus on robotics’ principles and theory. Dynamics and Control of Robotic Systems contains an extensive collection of examples and problems and: Puts the focus on the fundamentals of kinematics and dynamics as applied to robotic systems Presents the techniques of analytical mechanics of robotics Includes a review of advanced topics such as the recursive order N formulation Contains a wide array of design and analysis problems for robotic systems Written for students of robotics, Dynamics and Control of Robotic Systems offers a comprehensive review of the underlying principles and methods of the science of robotics.

Industrieroboter gehoren heute zum Alltag. In den letzten zehn Jahren verlagerte sich der Schwerpunkt der Neuentwicklungen weg von den Robotern selbst, hin zu alternativen Formen der kunstlichen Intelligenz, mit denen die Gerate ausgestattet werden. Dem Rechnung tragend, beschaftigt sich die zweite Auflage dieses Handbuchs vor allem mit Anwendungen und Strategien zur Problemlosung in der Industrie. Angesprochen werden Themen wie Graphiksimulatoren, objektorientierte Software, Kommunikationssysteme und Mikro- und Nanoroboter. (04/99)

Going beyond the traditional field of robotics to include other mobile vehicles, this reference and "recipe book" describes important theoretical concepts, techniques, and applications that can be used to build truly mobile intelligent autonomous systems (MIAS). With the infusion of neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithm paradigms for MIAS, it blends modeling, sensors, control, estimation, optimization, signal processing, and heuristic methods in MIAS and robotics, and includes examples and applications throughout. Offering a comprehensive view of important topics, it helps readers understand the subject from a system-theoretic and practical point of view.

With the science of robotics undergoing a major transformation just now, Springer’s new, authoritative handbook on the subject couldn’t have come at a better time. Having broken free from its origins in industry, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenging terrain of unstructured environments. Unlike other handbooks that focus on industrial applications, the Springer Handbook of Robotics incorporates these new developments. Just like all Springer Handbooks, it is utterly comprehensive, edited by internationally renowned experts, and replete with contributions from leading researchers from around the world. The handbook is an ideal resource for robotics experts but also for people new to this expanding field.

These proceedings contain more than 80 of the best papers presented at the INCOM '92 Symposium, and relate to the vast changes which are occurring worldwide in manufacturing technology. Research oriented technical papers cover subjects such as: simulation of manufacturing processes; sensor based robots; information systems; general aspects of CIM and manufacturing networks.

Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology 1982 documents the proceedings of the 4th IFAC/IFIP Symposium held in Maryland, USA, on 26-28 October 1982. The volume contains 27 papers divided into six sections. The papers in Section 1 cover the various US government programs sponsoring manufacturing-related research. This support ranges from basic process physics research to general questions of artificial intelligence in the manufacturing environment. At the heart of any manufacturing operation are the unit processes. Proper control of these processes is vital to achieving the autonomy that will eventually lead to automated manufacturing systems. Section 2 addresses these issues in terms of the general control problem involved and in the solution of specific processing problems. Section 3 presents examples of both on and off-line techniques that use novel methods of data acquisition and signal processing. Section 4 focuses on the role of industrial robots in advanced manufacturing systems. It addresses fundamental questions of manipulator design and control, and modelling of robot work environment. The ability to integrate processes and robots into an efficient manufacturing system is truly the challenge of the future. Section 5 deals with a wide range of such problems, including planning, scheduling, inventory, and decision systems. Section 6 presents specific examples of fully automated manufacturing and assembly systems.